US Taxpayers Paying $3.042B for UN, More Than 185 Other Countries Combined

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How does it feel to pony up this kind of cash to one of the worst ideas in the history of the world, the UN? The UN is another example of "if at first you don't succeed, try try again". The failure of The League of Nations and the subsequent formation of the UN is a classic example of that.

American taxpayers will pony up around $3.024 billion this year towards the United Nations’ regular and peacekeeping budgets, more than what 185 other countries combined are paying, an expert on the international body told U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday.

While the U.S. contribution in 2015 to the U.N. regular budget is $621.9 million, the 35 countries contributing the least will pay just $28,269 each, Heritage Foundation scholar Brett Schaefer told the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee responsible for multilateral institutions.

And where the U.S. will pay $2.402 billion towards the separate peacekeeping budget, the 20 countries contributing the least will pay just $8,470 each.

Putting those together, “the United States will be assessed approximately $3 billion this year, based on the projected budgets for the regular and peacekeeping budgets, while the 20 least-assessed countries will be assessed less than $37,000 [each] this year for both of those budgets,” he said.

“For the regular budget, the U.S. is assessed more than 176 other U.N. member-states combined,” Schaefer said. “For the peacekeeping budget, the U.S. is assessed more than 185 other U.N. member-states, combined.”

In oral and written testimony, Schaefer provided the panel with other “stark” comparisons highlighting the disproportionate contributions provided by the U.S. in 2015, including:

--More than half the U.N.’s membership will be assessed less than $1 million each for both budgets (compared to $3.024 billion for the U.S. alone).

--The 119 members of the Non-Aligned Movement together will account for around $490 million (compared to $3.024 billion for the U.S. alone).

--The 56 countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) – which include 10 of the world’s 20 top oil-producing nations – will together contribute around $360 million (compared to $3.024 billion for the U.S. alone).

--The other four permanent members of the U.N. Security Council – Russia, China, Britain and France – will together account for around $2.523 billion (compared to $3.024 billion for the U.S. alone).

Schaefer told the committee he believed it was in the interests of the U.S. to have an effective United Nations, but to be useful the U.N. must be competent, efficient, transparent, accountable, and must hold employees to the highest standards of conduct.

“Unfortunately, the current organization falls short.”

In recent years, he continued, the methodology used for the U.N. “scale of assessments” – the formula determining how much each member-state pays – has “increasingly shifted costs of the organization away from the bulk of the membership onto a relative handful of high-income nations, particularly the United States.”

Schaefer said the effect of this situation was that countries paying very little had no qualms with voting for budget increases, since an increase on their small contributions was “relatively minor, and in some cases insignificant.”

“Other U.N. states have very little incentive to go along with changes to the scales of assessment to lower the U.S. assessment down, because that would of course lead them to pay higher costs.”

When budgetary decisions are made, every member-state has the same single vote. In practice, this means that 129 member-states (two-third of the overall membership) can pass a budget over the objections of the top 17 contributors which together account for more than 81 percent of the budget – even though those 129 members contribute just 1.5 percent.

Schaefer recommended that the U.S. seek to change the institution’s rules to give greater say to bigger contributors.

“The U.S. should demand that U.N. budgetary decisions, in addition to approval by two-thirds of the member states, must also be approved by member states collectively paying two-thirds of the regular budget assessments,” he said.

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